


I Now Pronounce You Man and Wife

by Mad_Hatter_Usagi



Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, nobody is an actual newsie anymore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-07
Updated: 2015-07-29
Packaged: 2018-04-03 09:30:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4095865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mad_Hatter_Usagi/pseuds/Mad_Hatter_Usagi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Race gets paired with the new kid, Spot, during an Economics class project where they have to be married.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“You’re late again, Kelly,” Mr. Wiesel growled from his podium.

Jack only shrugged and walked to his seat. “Don’t worry ‘bout it, Weasel.”

“That’s the third time this week.”

“Aw, didja miss me, Mr. Weasel?” Jack bantered.

Nearly every day in Mr. Wiesel’s Economics class was the same: Jack would mess with the teacher after being late to cover up the rest of the class’s general antics. Mush would be asleep, Boots would be playing games on his phone, Davey would be doing work for other classes, Crutchy would be doodling stick figures in the margins of his notebook, Race would be checking his fantasy league scores, and Spot would be sitting in the back with his feet up on the desk, making paper-clip crossbows to shoot people with. Spot Conlon was new to the school, a transfer from Brooklyn, and the general vibe he gave off was the “mysterious silent delinquent” type. He didn’t talk to anyone, not ever the teachers, he just stared at them blankly until they shut up.

“Ugh, just shut your mouth and sit down, Kelly.” Wiesel rolled his eyes and pulled down the projector screen. He queued up the PowerPoint and lectured about a few slides, completely aware of how little attention he was getting. Being an Economics teacher in a class with only teenage boys who had better things to do was not how Wiesel wanted to live out the rest of his tenure. It was nearing the end of class when he got to the homework slide at the end.

_Embarrassment time_ , he decided.

As the new slide came up, explaining the next project, Wiesel put his plan into action. “Your next project will be a partner project—“ a brief whoop of joy erupted from the slackers “—you will be divided into pairs to be a married couple. You will need to prepare a budget for one month, given the parameters I will pass out to each couple.”

The classic beginnings of the partnering up began as soon as “partner project” left his mouth. Heads swung about in desperate attempts to get a partner before everyone else had one. Eyes met eyes as everyone coupled up, with the exception of Spot in the back who seemed entirely unconcerned and continued crafting his weapons. _Perfect_ , Wiesel thought, _time to crush their plans._

“Of course, I’ll be picking the partners.”

“What?!” A chorus of outraged pubescent voices filled the room.

“Now, Mr. Weasel—“

“Quiet, Kelly. When I’ve announced your partner, go sit with them and figure out when and where you’re going to work on this, it’s homework, so you’ll have no time in school to work on it.” Mr. Wiesel interrupted. His eyes settling on the indifferent boy in the back row. “Conlon…--“ his eyes scanned the rows of desks, each boy looking nervous to be paired up with the threatening Spot Conlon—“and Higgins. I now pronounce you man and wife.”

Race was shocked by the declaration of his partner. He glanced back at Spot, who hadn’t looked up from fashioning his weapons, appearing to all the world that he hadn’t been listening. So Race got up, gathering his notebook and tucking his phone in his pocket as he shuffled to the back of class, plopping into the desk beside Spot.

Without looking up, Spot nodded toward his phone sitting on the desk and said, “Password’s double seven-six-eight. Put your number in my phone and send yourself a text.”

Race followed the instructions, giving dubious looks to his partner as he unlocked the phone and inputted his number. He sent a text to himself, resisting the urge to go through the other boy’s phone before he handed the device back. Spot looked up at him as he was handed the phone, drawing his eyes over Race with a slow gaze that made Race squirm anxiously.

“So, uh…” Race began.

The bell rang, and everyone was out of the room in seconds. Spot got up, stuffing the finished paperclip gun and hornets into his pockets, and began walking out of the room. As a passing thought he called, “I’ll text you,” over his shoulder before he headed to his next class. Race felt dizzy, and not only because he’d caught a whiff of Spot’s amazing-smelling aftershave as he’d passed.

 

* * *

 

 

At lunch, there was a chatter about the prospects of the assignment. Joking pet names like “honey” and “dah-ling” were slung across the table between “married” couples. Romeo elbowed Race, who was turning his phone over and over in his hand as he ate his crappy school meal.

“Hey, Race, how did things go with Conlon?” Romeo asked.

“I don’t know, man. We exchanged numbers, but he didn’t really have anything to say.” Race said, shrugging as he took a bite of his pizza.

His phone vibrated, and he dropped his pizza—and nearly dropped his phone—as he scrambled to pick up. There was a text from Spot:

After sending his reply and waiting a few minutes, Spot responded with an address. Surprisingly, it was three blocks away from where Race lived. He smiled—they were practically neighbors. Romeo bumped his shoulder, and Race was a little disturbed with the knowing grin that Romeo was sporting.

“What?” Race demanded.

“Somebody’s got a crush!” He announced.

“No I don’t!”

“Sure you do! You should’ve seen your face when you got that text, Race.”

“Shut it, Romeo.”

“Hey, I’ve got that nickname for a reason! Remember how hard I fell for Specs? Well, I was doin’ the same crap about him.”

“I said, shut it, Romeo,” Race elbowed him in the side and went back to eating his pizza. He shoved his phone in his hoodie pocket, choosing to ignore the urge to message Spot back to start a casual conversation.

 

* * *

 

 

The next day, Saturday, Race found himself standing in a towel in front of his closet. Sure, he was just going over to a guy-he-barely-knew’s house, but he didn’t want to look like a loser. After all, Spot was kind of cute. He had that whole modern punk vibe going on with the gauges and bar through his right ear. Race couldn’t help it if he had a thing for piercings.

Chances were that Spot wasn’t even gay, and wouldn’t give a shit what Race showed up in, but Race still felt worry in the pit of his stomach. He at least wanted to be friends with the attractive new kid who alienated himself by being generally scary. The guy did pick fights a lot, and when he was seen talking to someone at the school gate it was usually some large tough-looking guy that looked like he was being given orders by the slightly-shorter-than-average Spot.

Race ended up wearing a pair of his distressed jeans, rolled up to mid-calf, and a red The Flash t-shirt. He fussed over his hair uselessly for a few minutes, then stared at himself, thinking how useless and ridiculous it was. He pulled on an old hoodie, a red beanie, and a pair of worn Converse before running out the door. As he walked the three blocks to Spot’s house, he cursed himself for getting a crush on the new kid, who was probably too dangerous to be friends with, much less date them.


	2. Spot is the Worst

When he reached the house, Race lingered on the front step for a few moments before ringing the doorbell. Race was so caught up in his own inner monologue of how nervous he was about hanging out with the cute, mysterious stranger, he didn’t realize that the door was actually opening. Spot stood in the doorway, looking entirely unimpressed with the fact that Race had been zoning out on his front steps. Race nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw the look on Spot’s face, he only hoped he wasn’t blushing.

Spot stepped out of the way and jerked his head back, clearly telling Race to get his ass inside. As Spot led him upstairs, a girl appeared at the top landing. She looked several years younger than them, and was obviously Spot’s little sister by the family resemblance in her surly glare at her brother. Her hands were on her hips and her eyes were fiery with anger.

“I wanna go to Val’s,” She announced, blocking Spot’s way upstairs.

“You finish cleaning your room?” When she only continued to glower at him, Spot rolled his eyes. “If it’ll shut you up, you can go. But you gotta swear to be back before Mom’s home, and to have your room clean. If you fuck me over, I’ll take fifty bucks out’a your piggy bank.”

The girl smiled and held out her pinky finger, Spot locked his pinky with hers briefly before she sped past them down the stairs. They heard the door open and slam behind her as she dashed out of the house. Spot rolled his eyes and continued to his room.

"What’s her name?” Race asked as he awkwardly shuffled behind Spot. He felt extremely out of place, especially when Spot was making no effort to actually speak to him.

“Elizabeth,” Spot said as he opened the door to his room.

The room was kind of small, but it wasn’t cluttered. There was an unmade bed with gray sheets and a navy comforter, a bookshelf with a fair amount of books, a wooden desk with a laptop sitting on top, and a small pile of dirty clothes by the closet door. Spot flopped back on the bed and stretched out like a cat. Race took off his old red hoodie and hung it over the back of the desk’s wooden chair, then sat backwards in it and tried to ease his nerves as Spot folded his arms behind his head.

“So we’re married, huh?” Spot asked, humor in his voice. “I never expected to have an arranged marriage, but here we are.”

A startled bubble of laughter burst out of Race before he was saying, “You could do worse; I’m pretty hot.”

For a moment, Race was cursing his quick mouth for not having a filter, because that definitely sounded like he was trying to flirt with Spot. Hopefully Spot would insult him, and then they could move on, Race thought. Instead, Spot had turned his head and was appreciatively looking him up and down, making Race feel like an exposed wire.

“Yeah, I think I did pretty well,” he said, making eye contact with Race with the kind of expression that communicated complete confidence. Race was floundering for a response, his mouth slightly agape and a heat in his cheeks. He just couldn’t think of something to respond with that wouldn’t make him sound like a complete idiot.

When Spot realized how flustered that he’d made Race, he smiled a brilliant, warming smile and changed the subject to give him a break. “So we’ve got to do _what_ for this project, exactly?”

“Uh, yeah, um, we’ve got to make a budget for a month as a married couple. So like, we have to make up jobs and incomes and what we’re spending money on, and how much.”

“And we can pick _any_ job, right? He didn’t give us a list to pick from?” Spot asked eagerly, sitting up.

“Yeah, anything. Why? What do you wanna be?” Race leaned forward in his chair, tipping it on two legs.

“I’m gonna be a mob boss,” Spot said resolutely, a joking smile on his face.

Race laughed, “Then how about I be a crooked cop?”

“Ooh, perfect. That way you can look the other way and help me out with keeping the other cops off my tail.” Spot’s eyes shone with glee.

They chattered for nearly two hours about their project, with brief interludes of laughing and walking around the room to make ranting points about how stupid the project was. Eventually, Race sat next to where Spot was sprawled on the twin bed, a contented silence had fallen between them. Their project had been outlined in a composition notebook that now lay on the floor where Race had tossed it when he’d gotten bored. All that was left was to figure out a way to present their work, but they’d said they’d do that after school the next Tuesday, since they didn’t really want to keep talking about it.

Spot sat up and looked Race over, “You know, I meant what I said about me lucking out with my partner. You definitely aren’t bad looking.”

“Oh, a compliment from the mysterious Spot Conlon,” Race said sarcastically, trying to ignore his heartbeat that was sounding almost like a train leaving the station.

“Mysterious? Is that what I am?”

“You had the dark and brooding thing going for you until your sister bullied you into letting her go hang out at a friend’s house. Now you’re just mysterious, since I don’t know that much about you.”

“You consider that maybe I wanted my sister out of the house so we could be alone?” Spot asked innocently,

“Are you hitting on me, Conlon?” Race joked, watching as Spot inched closer and closer.

“Maybe I am, maybe I’m not, Higgins,” Spot said, his face dangerously close to Race’s. “Would I be one to pass up flirting with a hot guy like yourself? You don’t really know, because I’m so damn mysterious,” Spot teased, his eyes half-lidded and soft.

And just like in a cheesy romance movie, they were interrupted by a phone ringing. Race’s phone was going wild with Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody; “Mama…OOOooOOO…” startled them out of their nice moment into an awkward one. Spot moved, blank-faced, so that he was leaning back on his hands. Race snatched his phone out of his pocket and answered.

“Honey, can you come home? I need your help getting something out of the attic,” his mother said.

Race felt his stomach drop; anxiety about what it would mean if he left Spot, how he would explain wanting to stay, and what would happen if he did stay. He knew his mother though, she wasn’t going to stop, so he figured he’d just leave and hope for the best. “Yeah, okay, be there in a bit.”

After hanging up, Race looked over at Spot, who wasn’t even looking at him anymore. Disappointment hung like a fog over them both, but neither of them were going to acknowledge it. Spot got up and walked toward the bedroom door, not waiting for Race to catch up. Race hurried after him, feeling guilty, as they descended the stairs. The front door was opened for him, and Spot leaned against the wall beside it, his face blank.

Race walked out the door, feeling the cold shoulder that Spot was giving him a little too much. He turned back for a moment to say goodbye, but the words died on his tongue as the door swung shut with a soft _bang_. He shuffled on home, kicking at pebbles on the sidewalk in frustration.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I loved all the kudos you guys gave me, but can I ask for some more comments? The ones telling me to write more usually get my ass in gear and get me to actually sit down with Word open. 
> 
> My tumblr is notsoshadybisexual, feel free to come talk to me!

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr is: notsoshadybisexual.tumblr.com


End file.
